


twin sized mattress

by eightyo



Category: The Outsiders (1983), The Outsiders - All Media Types, The Outsiders - S. E. Hinton
Genre: Curlyboy, M/M, Songfic, Twin Sized Mattress, the front bottoms - Freeform
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-02-03
Updated: 2019-06-19
Packaged: 2019-10-03 10:39:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 6,364
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17282519
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/eightyo/pseuds/eightyo
Summary: make sure you kiss your knuckles before you punch me in the facethere are lessons to be learnedconsequences for all the stupid things i sayand it is no big surprise you turned out this waythe spark in your eyes, the look on your face, i will not be brave(twin sized mattress - the front bottoms)





	1. darry.

“Darry, I’m home!”

Darry was sprung from his daze, blinking in panicked darkness for a few moments before he realized that he’d fallen asleep with the newspaper over his face. With a sweep of his hand, he brushed the newspaper to the floor, wincing at the light springing in through the shade slats over his bedroom window.

“Ponyboy? That you?”

“Duh.” There was another voice, one that Darry recognized all too well. He hated the squeaky, pubescent voice, uncomfortably raspy from years of smoking. Maybe that’s why he hated him so damn much. Curly Shepard was the polar opposite of him. Darry was wild as a kid, the same way Curly was, but he grew out of it years before the younger boy.

There was one more thing that Darry utterly despised about this punk; as much as he hated to admit it, he liked him. Curly Shepard was a truly troubled soul, and unbeknownst to him, Darry could see right through him. His mom wasn’t doing anything, his dad got deported back to Mexico the year before, and his siblings were certainly no help, except for maybe Tim, but who was he kidding. It wasn’t hard to see why he was the way he was; something that evoked sympathy deep down in Darry’s heart. In all actuality, the only reason Darry still let Curly hang around Pony was because the kid needed someone to keep an eye on him, ‘else he’d surely get himself killed one dumb way or another.

“Yeah, Darry. Curly’s here, too.”

Darry Curtis didn’t really hate Curly, though. Far from it. He felt bad for the kid, mostly because that’s all he was. A kid. He knew Curly was a wild kid, wilder than Pony could ever dream to be. Curly was fourteen going on fifteen and had already gotten in trouble with the police more times than either of them could count.

“Okay, I guess. I’m taking a nap, so be sure to mind your volume.”

It isn’t like Curly could do any harm to Ponyboy. Pony was too much of a goody-two-shoes; the kid had straight-As, never drank, and hadn’t gone near a drug all his life, or at least Darry hoped to sweet merciful Christ he hadn't. Him and Curly Shepard were opposites too, the only difference was that they got along so well. Pony was there to balance Curly out, and he had been since they were in elementary school. This do-good attitude towards Curly had gotten Pony in trouble more times than not, though it was always Curly who took the fall at the end of it.

“Y’all got anything to eat? You always have something good lyin' around.”

That’s one thing Darry admired about Curly. He had some moral compass, or at least that's what both Pony and Darry liked to think he had. Pony, more so for the incessant, unknowing urge to keep faith in the friendship they'd managed to somehow keep for nearly six years by this point. And Darry, as reason, not an excuse, to keep what little faith he had in this kid.

"Uh-huh, there should be some pizza in the fridge from last night. Soda had a friend over, I think."

"Thank you, Darry!"

"Cool, thanks, _Mr. Curtis_."

Maybe it was a sick admiration of the person Darry used to be, before his parents died, college was completely thrown out of the picture, and any hope for the half-decent future he'd spent his entire life up until that point dreaming about was crushed. Darry had some level of self-awareness that he was now a changed man, a mere product of circumstance, just like good ol' Curly Shepard.

The kid knew what he wanted and how to get to it. Ain't nothing wrong with that, just human nature.


	2. ponyboy 1.

The next morning, Curly was gone. The clock read half past ten when Ponyboy woke up, groggy and still thick in the haze of slumber. The mid-morning rays of sunlight brushed past the thin white curtains, piercing through the blanket he’d partially draped over his head at some point during his sleep. He instinctually rubbed his eyes, brushing away whatever leftover dreams were still lingering in his skull. To his brief surprise, his fist brushed paper, and he yanked the yellow Post-It that had been stuck to his forehead. 

Pone 

Thanks for letting me crash last night 

Had to run some errands 

See you around 

Curlz 

The ‘z’ was signed with a flourish at the end, an arrogant trademark only someone like Curly could pull off un-ironically. This was typical of Curly; something Ponyboy had grown used to. Yeah, Ponyboy had always been his best friend, since the third grade at least, and they made an effort to hang out as much as possible, despite not seeing each other in school at all. Ponyboy tried to see him at least once a week, but Curly didn’t mind skipping every now and then. Ponyboy didn’t mind; Curly always managed to make time for him, it was their close friendship that dropped spending time with each other to a lower priority. 

_“You made it with Jamie Patterson?” Ponyboy choked on his Pepsi, eyes nearly bulging out of his skull with shock. The clock read fifteen to two; two in the morning, that was. Curly was by no means unattractive, but it was his attitude that scared most girls away. Curly tended to fall on the more misogynistic side, that was for certain, and it didn’t help that he looked like he could and would beat the living crap out of you if you looked at him the wrong way. His reputation preceded him, though. Ponyboy had always found it odd and almost unbelievable that girls weren’t throwing themselves at him left and right._

_“Well, sorta. Technically.” Curly’s eyes flickered off of the late night television program for a quick moment to look his best friend up and down. “You know I’ve never really done… that with girls before, at least not that far.”_

_“What happened, then? Jamie’s a fuckin’ sophomore!” The type of girls attracted to Curly were usually very predictable; down for quite literally anything and weren’t shy to express that. All of Curly’s former flings were oddballs, from Ricarda to Lanny. Regardless of name, they never stayed long, mostly due to Curly not quite reciprocating their lustful feelings._

_“So we were on the elementary school blacktop, at around half past one, and she was laying down in my lap and shit, and we was making out and all that jazz. Not too crazy-style like Ricarda liked, and apparently that wasn’t enough for Jamie. She was, like, strokin’ on my jeans and I was not down to get my dick sucked on the elementary school blacktop.” Curly’s voice was unusually soft, quiet, the rare tone he took when things got serious. Ponyboy could just tell this wasn’t what Curly had told his friends, but it was the truth nonetheless. He could read the taller boy like a book._

_“And I just kind of told her to quit it and she started to get mad, askin’ why I was bein’ a prude and saying that Tim would never pull shit like this, leading a poor girl on. I just told her I wanted to go home, and I got up and left after shaking her off of me. She wouldn’t stop, though, like she insisted on walking home with me as if that would change my mind. I told her to hit the pike and she slapped me, but I still walked home with her.” Curly’s eyes were losing their focus, lazily dragging along Ponyboy’s hand sliding a cigarette out of the carton and bringing it to his lips._

_“Curls, you know she ain’t shit. She’s just a slut looking for a good time.” Ponyboy’s speech was a bit muffled as he spoke through his teeth, bringing the lighter to the tip of the cigarette. “But, man, I gotta ask; why’d you quit?”_

_“I honestly don’t know why I pussied out. This stays between us, by the way.” Curly’s voice sharpened once again, his dark green eyes piercing Ponyboy’s; the only trait that separated him from his notorious older brother._

_“Of course.”_

_“But yeah, anyways, I didn’t even really like making out with her. I have no idea what the fuck’s wrong with me. I just liked sitting with her on that blacktop, just, like, enjoying the night with a girl or something. It made me feel like I was somethin’ special to her, instead of just another notch on her bedpost.”_

_“That’s totally alright, man. You don’t owe shit to that whore!” Ponyboy lifted up his Pepsi in the air as a sort of testament to his words, ashes dripping off of the cigarette along with drops of soda from the bottle. As cruel as it was, something about hearing Curly vomit up his insecurities like this made Ponyboy feel a deep satisfaction, knowing nobody else had the privilege of hearing any of this and they never would, so long as Curly kept on with his brother’s ‘untouchable kickass’ persona._

_“She’s honestly pretty fucking ugly anyways, too pale for my taste. What is she, like, a fucking vampire?” Curly laughed, stretching out his legs on to the floor from his spot on the opposite side of the couch so that only his torso and above touched it. “I’d be willing to make out with someone pretty. Why don’t none of those pretty Soc girls pay me any attention?”_

_“Those broads all have their heads up their asses. You’re too tough, too cool for any of them anyways. We all are.” Ponyboy shrugged. He just prayed to God that Curly would stop chasing after girls that would never like him back, stop wasting his time on the sleazy girls that only wanted to bang and leave, and to stop trying and failing to flirt with all of Tim’s girl friends. All of Curly’s endeavors were fruitless, almost like a funny sort of curse. Curly’s romantic life was nothing short of a disaster, and Ponyboy just hoped he would finally realize that and just wait for the right person instead of trying to jump the gun with girls who were closer in age to Tim than him._

_“You said it, man. You said it.” Curly halfheartedly raised his fist in the air, slamming it down on his stained white t-shirt like he was beating a drum. The silence that followed was filled with what might as well be white noise from the television, some dumb Western rerun from five years ago. It wasn’t an awkward silence; it couldn’t be awkward between the two boys. They’d been around each other too much for that to even be a possibility._

_“Pony, you know you’re my best friend, right?”_

_“And you’re mine, Curly.”_

_“I love you, man.”_

_“Love you too.”_

_Curly’s voice was sleepy and worn out from hours of talking, and he began slowly picking himself up and laying himself down on his side of the couch._

_“I ain’t a bad person for treatin’ these girls like shit, don’t gem’me wrong. I just want something that isn’t just for sex, like, I’m so desperate for something that means something but all girls want nowadays is the same damn meaninglessness. Don’t confuse me for any kind of Nancy-boy or nothin’, I swear that ain’t the case.”_

_“Yeah, I get it.” Most people would be pissed off that Curly had been mostly talking to a brick wall, not really letting Ponyboy get a word in edgewise. Ponyboy was different, though; Curly’s words were therapeutic to him, every little sigh and every ‘man’ that came out of that kid’s mouth washed an unprecedented wave of relief over Ponyboy._

_“Goodnight, Pone.”_

_“‘Night, Curls. It’s high time we get to bed anyways.” Ponyboy snuffed the life out of his cigarette in the ashtray, kicking his feet back up onto the couch, his legs aside Curly’s on the off-white couch._


	3. ponyboy 2.

The sun hung low in the late Tuesday hour. Ponyboy hadn’t heard from Curly in a few days. He didn’t think much of it at the time; Curly was as wild as they came, he was probably off following whatever his fallibly impulsive heart told him to do, undoubtedly with his brother’s gang. It was spring break, after all. Ponyboy had been spending his fair share of time fucking around with his own gang, though was still devoting several hours to his beloved books to fill the long days of early April. He had still felt a small emptiness with Curly being suddenly gone and everything, feeling what was almost jealousy thinking about Curly out with his brother’s gang, likely with girls being roped in, Ponyboy probably not even crossing his mind once. Ponyboy suppressed these intrusive thoughts, seeing as they served no purpose but to unnecessarily stress him out.

Still, he couldn’t help but worry for his friend. On top of his aggressive attitude, Curly had a tendency to live his life on the edge, and had an affinity for the illegal; becoming quite the weed fiend in the past year or so because of his brother and enjoying a shitty beer bought with Tim’s fake ID. Ponyboy and Curly were very different in this regard, with Ponyboy preferring to keep his illegal activities bound to more minor things, with graffiti being the most he’d been willing to do without backing out. Ponyboy disliked this side of Curly, not wanting his childhood best friend to slip into a hole he couldn’t dig himself out of and succumbing to the cycle of poverty like most hoods who did that shit; at worst throwing away his future with drug charges all because of some stupid decisions piling on top of each other. He tended to ignore and at most criticize Curly for his actions, not wanting to lose their friendship over their differing views. Ponyboy managed to press back the anxieties in his head for the time being, but that wasn’t always an easy task. He just wished Curly would spend less time around Tim’s gang, who were nothing but bad influences to their leader’s kid brother and liked including him in their unethical endeavors to get their sick kicks. Ponyboy honestly wasn’t sure if Curly knew they were taking advantage of him or not.

Curly was a dumb, rash, hotheaded son of a bitch who spoke more with fists than words, but Ponyboy loved him, and he was willing to put up with that.

Ponyboy had been laid back on his bed, legs sprawled out across the expanse of the bed with one knee propped up for support, thumbing aimlessly through his worn and dog-eared copy of The Great Gatsby when a knock came upon his bedroom door. He jumped, snapped out of his hypnotic daze of boredom. He’d read that particular book at least five or six times and was just looking back through it, often skipping a set of pages as his thoughts fell elsewhere. He was, to no exaggeration, bored out of his skull, and he wanted nothing more for Curly to just swing by on one of his random appearances to play cards or go somewhere; something exciting, which good ol’ Curly always had in mind, a perfect remedy to Ponyboy’s tedium.

“Yeah? Come in!” Ponyboy looked up from his book at the knock, sliding it to his side. Soda’s head popped in, his furrowed brow contrasting the amused grin on his face.

“Pone, you wouldn’t believe it; Curly done did himself in!”

“Huh?”

His older brother pushed the door all the way open, stepping into their shared room.

“Curly got sent to juvie, man. Dally was talkin’ my ear off about it; he’s damn impressed with the kid. Tim and him were even having a good laugh about it.”

“Soda, what the hell are you talkin’ about?” Ponyboy cocked his eyebrow, pressing his hands into the bedsheets, giving his brother a look. “You’re pullin’ my dick, aren’t you.”

“I wish I was, little man. He’s in there for three months!”

Ponyboy averted his eyes, heart pounding.

"Well, what’d he do?”

“Got caught drinking and driving. Apparently, when he was hanging out with Tim and his gang, he was drunk as shit and took off with Oliver Hudson’s pickup truck when nobody was looking. Since he’s, like, fifteen, he only made it a few blocks into the city before he got pulled over.”

“Holy shit.”

“Yeah, I know, right? What a fuckin’ nut. I mean, I knew he was trouble and everything, who didn’t, but I never expected _that_ from a little guy like him.”

Ponyboy’s head was reeling. All of his fears for his dearest friend were now a devastating reality.

_“Curly, come on. We have to get out of here.” Ponyboy stood by the sidewalk, head quite literally spinning, scanning his surroundings repeatedly to watch for when the police would inevitably show up. Sirens wailed in the distance, slowly but surely growing nearer._

_“Hold on, I swear, just give me a minute. We can sell these to some seventh graders and make bank - you know those idiots, they’ll waste their money on the dumb shit older kids like us provide. Trust me!” Curly was crouched behind the park bench, picking up the abandoned unopened beer bottles scattered across the grass and dead leaves, shoving them in his backpack. The nearly overwhelming surplus of trees in this corner of the park is what made it so good to hide out in and have a few illegal beers and some bud, but not so good when you’re trying to find those previously aforementioned beers in the pitch black after they’ve been covered by the dead leaves of autumn._

_As usual, Curly and Ponyboy had left the Curtis house with the intention of venturing through the Tulsa streets, helping themselves to whatever sort of small adventure they came across. Usually it was nothing more than running into a few friends and shooting the shit with them, or doing something silly and dumb like shouting at stoned hippies to startle them. The two boys had instead come across a bunch of Tim’s gang friends, all of whom were high school juniors like the latter, drinking and passing around a pot pipe in the park later in the evening. Tim was stuck at work and subsequently wasn’t there to prevent his friends from wasting their beer on his brother, so his friends decided it’d be funny to take advantage of their opportunity and get some middle schoolers fucked up. Curly gleefully accepted their offer and downed two beers within the first five minutes, while Ponyboy begrudgingly sat next to him on the rim of the fountain separated by a few feet from the rest of the gang, refusing any substance sent his way._

_Unfortunately for everyone involved, one of the neighbors got sick of all the noise and called the cops to shut them up. At the sound of sirens, Tim’s gang had fled to continue the night elsewhere, and in the chaos, had dropped a few of their beers._

_“It’s not gonna be worth it. The fuzz are on their way! Fuck this!” Ponyboy threw his arms up in the air and let out an exasperated chuckle. “I’m out of here. I’m not getting hauled off to jail along with you just because you wanted to squeeze every last penny out of your luck.”_

_“You can go, then! I’m keeping the bottles at my place anyways.” Curly got to his feet, still scouring the ground for any bottles he might have missed, unzipped backpack clutched in front of him. He didn’t even look behind him to check if Ponyboy was actually leaving or not._

_“Whatever. It’s your ass that’s on the line now, not mine.” Ponyboy only took a few steps back onto the paved park path before stopping again, ignoring all his gut instincts screaming at him to run as far away from the sirens as he could. Sure enough, within the next ten seconds Curly had finished his search and thrown the backpack onto his back, sprinting onto the path._

_“I told you I was almost done, but still, thanks for waiting, man.” Curly thanked his friend in between breaths as the boys ran together, Curly being the bigger and stronger, and therefore faster, leading the way with Ponyboy trailing a few feet behind._

_“Uh huh. Just don’t pull shit like that again.” Ponyboy huffed passive aggressively, keeping his eyes fixated on Curly’s old black backpack as they raced out of the dimly lit park and into the smaller streets surrounding it._

_“I won’t, on my momma, I won’t. This was an exception since Tim was gone and everything. I’ll not drag you into my shit again, man. Last thing I want is for you to end up like me.”_

Ponyboy’s mind swirled with thoughts and echoing words, clicking together and shuffling around. He couldn’t look Soda back in the eye. It shouldn’t have been hard to believe, seeing the way Curly was headed, but Ponyboy had convinced himself to try and suppress his anxieties about his friends ending up in the shitter so often that it’d become almost unrealistic to be realistic.

“In other words, your friend’s got a DUI. Can’t believe you hang around a guy like that, Pone. He ain’t like you at all. It’s almost funny.” Soda snickered, beginning to lean back out of the door. “Anyways, Sandy’s coming over in an hour so I’m gonna order a pizza. You’re welcome.”

He barely even noticed when Soda ducked out of the room. Almost as if he were in a trance, Ponyboy stared at the edge of his bed for what seemed like hours to him, just thinking about nothing and everything, and everything was Curly. _Three months_ bounced across his mind and shot into his heart, and suddenly now he realized that he’d have to live without his best friend for three whole months. His Curly, just gone like that.


	4. ponyboy 3.

Curlz,

I don’t know when you’re going to be able to write back or even going to get this but I hope it’s sooner rather than later, because I honestly miss you so much. It’s been pretty boring without you here to do something wild to liven the mood.

How’s juvie? You have to tell me all about it when you get out. Sure, Dally’s told me some things, but half the time I think he’s just embellishing some things to try and scare me, so I don’t really have a good reference point for what it’s like on the inside.

I don’t really want to talk too much about you and juvie. I’m sure you’re sick to death of it, man. I’m really sorry about all that. But it’s not like you’re missing too much back home, either. Tin Connor’s party is coming up in a couple of weeks on the 29th and Soda won’t shut the hell up about how he’s gonna try and get to third base with Sandy there, like I care, and the most exciting I’ve done in the past few weeks is keep watch white Two-Bit graffitied on a delivery van.

Don’t think I forgot your birthday, either! Man, getting shut up in the cooler three days before you turn fifteen; that’s one hell of a birthday gift. A few weeks ago Soda handed me down one of his leather jackets and I’m not to keen on it, y’know? Not really my style, I guess I think you’d really like it, and you’d look good in it too. It’s just something about you, I don’t know what it is, but you can pull off anything. Some guys would look goony or cheesy wearing something but you’d just look awful cool with whatever. Maybe it’s your vibe or something. I don’t know.

I’m hoping you get out soon. I’m not trying to sound like your old man or anything, but just stay out of trouble for me in there, okay? If you’re lucky, they’ll let you out early on good behavior. Two-Bit says that happens all the time nowadays because the jails are getting crowded.

Anyways, stay strong in there, buddy. We’re all cheering for you and we all hope you’re doing O.K.! Oh, and Johnny wants me to say hi to you, too. He just left my place about five minutes ago. He’s doing pretty well, or as well as Johnny Cade can do.

See you on the flipside, man.

Ponyboy Curtis, May 2, 1965

 

The month of May was now coming to a close, and the emotional atmosphere amongst the Tulsa youth was light and happy with the knowledge that the interminable school year was finally ending. Ponyboy and Soda’s shared bed was unusually empty on this particular Friday night, as Soda was off at Tin Connor’s yearly end-of-school party. Tin Connor’s parties were always legendary, as his parents were notoriously neglectful and might as well not exist, so anything that could happen did happen over there. Tin Connor parties were the kind of parties that you didn’t come home from until the early hours of the following morning, so Ponyboy thought it wise to go to bed early and get as much sleep as he possibly could

Tap. Tap.

Ponyboy, who had always resented what a light sleeper he was solely because of Soda’s incessant snoring and sleep-talking habits, was grateful he had been woken by the light tapping at his windowpane. His greenish brown eyes fluttered open briefly, only to close again, stuck back together by sleep’s siren song.

Tap. Tap. Tap.

The noise, again. This time, Ponyboy realized a branch was tapping against his windowpane or something of the sort, with the sound being amplified by the slight opening in the window Ponyboy had created earlier to allow some ventilation in the sticky humidity that filled the Curtis house in summer. With a muffled groan, he shoved aside his thin bedsheets and rolled himself out of bed, stumbling through the darkness to shut his window.

“Ponyboy Curtis? Ponyboy!” Came a hushed voice from just a few feet in front of him. Ponyboy halted, taken aback, eyes blinking rapidly to adjust to the darkness while his hands rested on top of the windowpane.

“What? Who is that?” Ponyboy called out into the darkness, pushing the windowpane upwards to open the window even more.

“Curly! It’s Curly,” Said the voice. “Lower your voice. I don’t want you waking Darry.”

“Curly? You’re joshin’ me. Holy shit.” Ponyboy’s eyes were beginning to finally adjust to the near pitch blackness of the Curtis’s side yard, where he could faintly make out the stocky figure of a particular 5’8 teenage boy. “How are you here? You’re not supposed to get out for another two months, I thought.”

“Yeah, I know, that’s why I’m sneaking into your window at half past one in the morning. Now give me a hand, would ya?” Curly pressed himself against the wall, and wrapped his arms around the windowsill and began hoisting himself in. Ponyboy grabbed his torso with both hands and started pulling him into the room, falling back with Curly on top of him with a triumphant _thud_.

“Oh shit, could that have been louder?” Curly’s eyes flew towards the bedroom door, immediately pushing himself off of the smaller boy and jumping to his feet.

“Don’t worry, Darry’s tired as shit. He’s been working all day.” Ponyboy breathed, pushing himself up into a sitting position. “I don’t care about that. Curly, what the sam hell are you doing here? What happened?”

“Well, to state the obvious, I broke outta juvie. Couldn’t stand it in that joint no more. I would’ve gone batshit insane had I been in there another hour.” Curly looked down at his friend, sitting down in front of him and crossing his legs over each other, tucking himself into a ball. “Plus, I missed you, I guess.”

“Oh my God. No way, man.” Ponyboy stared his friend up and down like he had grown a third head right then and there. “Wait, are the cops after you? They can’t find out you’re here. What if they show up and arrest Darry for harboring a fugitive?”

“No, I doubt they’ll notice for a few more hours ’til around four when they start waking people up, and by the time they do I’ll be long out of here, don’t you worry.” Curly raised his hands for a brief moment before setting them back down on his knees, flashing his best friend a playful and reassuring smile.

“Curly, for the love of God, tell me everything. How did you even get out?” Ponyboy blinked his eyes blankly, completely dumbfounded. A faint glow from the streetlight outside illuminated the one spot where Curly happened to be sitting, clearing up his appearance. His gnarled curly black hair was unwashed, tangled, and messy, which was nothing unusual, and he wore a baggy white t-shirt that was a good few sizes too big for him and hung loosely across his frame, which was a rare sight on a big kid like Curly. He wore black sweatpants with several rips along the knee, and his shoes were completely gone with hardly any sign that they were ever even there in the first place. Streaks of dirt and what was potentially blood scattered Curly’s face and arms, but aside from that Ponyboy couldn’t look any further due to the shadows enveloping everything his eyes could see.

“Well, I got out pretty easy, actually. I was part of a little group with three other guys that got out tonight, and they’d actually begun planning it before I even got there. I just helped arrange some stuff with the date and timing, and they roped me into it because they liked my style.”

“No kiddin’.” Ponyboy was barely listening to Curly’s words, but at the same time entirely fixed on them as his thought process didn’t even know where to begin with what was happening.

“But first, let me start from the beginning. Boy, Pony, do I have a story for you, old friend.”


	5. curly 1.

“Blowin’ in the Wind, The Times They Are A-Changin’, uhm, Masters of War, Mr. Tambourine Man, uh, The Times They Are A-Changin’…” Curly counted off songs on his fingers, with each title bending his finger so far back that it could snap if he had been any more tense.

“That’s only four.”

“Five! I said five!”

“You said The Times They Are A-Changin’ twice, moron.” Another voice chimed in, this time from a smaller girl with short ginger blonde hair in a pixie cut undoubtedly inspired by Mia Farrow’s recent haircut, soft blue eyes, pale skin, and a sloppily wrapped joint completely contrasting her sweet and innocent appearance.

“I’m thinkin’! Trust me, I listen to Bob Dylan all the time, I swear onnit. It’s the booze gettin’ to my head, is all.”

“You still need six more songs to get your next beer, little man.” Scoffed a boy with shaggy chestnut brown hair falling just past his shoulders and matching his eyes, a yellow pipe packed with pot in his left hand. He twirled the stem nonchalantly between his pointer and middle fingers, eyes fixated on the kid nearly three years his junior who sat on the dark green shag carpet in front of him.

“Give me a minute!” Curly ran his fingers through his greasy mop of black, curly hair, his dark eyes flickering wildly from focus point to focus point in the living room, mind racing. To make matters worse, was about two beers drunk, and it certainly didn’t help that he was being put on the spot like this.

“Curly, for the love of Christ, you just simply cannot wear a Bob Dylan shirt without actually listening to him. It disrespects his entire vibe.” Said the first voice again, which came from a lanky greaser with a workman’s tan and a shaved head, named Greg. Greg was sitting closest on the couch to Curly’s seat in the center on the carpet, his sharp greenish-blue eyes piercing straight through the smaller boy, simultaneously tossing two cans of beer in between his sizable, calloused hands.

“Whatever, you guys. Fuck y’all and fuck the beer, I’m leavin’.” Curly’s lightly freckled face now shone as red as a tomato, the blush rippling across his cheeks, intensifying along with his anger. He pushed himself up off of the carpet, making no hesitation in brandishing his middle finger for the whole room to see. As the world stopped spinning from his standing up, his eyes landed upon a bowl of car keys set up on a small table by the door, with the keys to Oliver Hudson’s Ford F-100 pickup resting on top of the pile.

Oliver Hudson was one of the oldest of Tim’s bunch at nearly nineteen years old, and had inherited his old man’s gray Ford pickup when he turned seventeen. Oliver was a pretty high-minded kid for someone who got his sick kicks in selling beer to middle schoolers, and didn’t hang with Tim’s gang as much as the others. Oliver was one of Curly’s favorites out of all of Tim’s friends, mostly because of how noticeably mature he was in comparison. He may have been only a year or so older than Tim but that seemed like a lifetime to Curly, as Oliver was also the most likely to stick up for Curly whenever Tim’s friends were picking on him and gave those pitiful younger, car-less suckers rides in the flatbed of his widely beloved and iconic pickup truck upon request. The younger kids tended to respect Oliver instead of just fear him, not only because he sold them cheap beer but also because he was always so damn cool to them about it, and didn’t pick on them for being little or anything. He recognized this and took it upon himself to be nicer to the littler ones in life, particularly Curly, despite the opposing attitudes of his peers. Tonight, though, Oliver was sitting on the far edge of the couch, baked out of his skull and likely tripping on something other than pot as well, completely oblivious to Curly’s recent plight.

As Curly stumbled towards the door, he bumped into the table, quickly snatching up Oliver’s keys and shoving them into his jeans pocket without a second thought.

God, Oliver loved that pickup of his. Hell, Curly did too, and so did everyone else.

“No one likes a poser!” Called out Greg. Curly paused for a brief moment as he heard a sharp clatter behind him, and turned to see that Greg had tossed a can after him, and it now rolled slightly out of the door, slowing down to a stop due to the prominent dent caused by the fall. Curly picked it up, clenching it gently in his fist so not to damage it more, and stormed out into the front yard.

“Let’s… let’s get outta here.” Curly muttered to himself. His gaze trailed up and down the sidewalk, checking for signs of his elder brother. Tim had left five minutes prior to grab some more beer from the corner store three blocks away. Curly silently prayed that Tim would take his sweet time walking back as per usual, which Curly usually resented.

“Oh ho, what do we have here!” Curly narrowed his eyes at the faded gray Ford pickup truck a few cars away from the Shepard residence, and began his trek towards it. “Truly a sight for sore eyes.”

As he approached the driver’s side door, he popped the nonexistent collar of his black Bob Dylan t-shirt he’d bought for himself a couple days prior, after a few painful weeks of saving what little money came his way, and pulled open the door with a flourish and hopped inside as if he were his own personal chauffeur.

“Alright, it can’t be _that_ hard. I’ve seen Timmy do it, like, a zillion times.” Curly began fiddling with the ignition, keys slipping out of his grip every couple of seconds, and grinned when the truck finally came to life with a satisfying roar about a minute later.

“Tonight,” He cried out with the unabashed confidence of a man who had just won the goddamn lottery. “We ride!”

A few city blocks later, his mind had changed. After pulling out of his street and deeper into the heart of Tulsa, he began to set into a dulled panic, struggling to focus on the streetlights as they blurred and twisted in front of him. The beer can Greg had tossed him was now half empty and resting in the passenger seat, dribbling out onto the leather with each bump Curly drove over.

“Oh my God, I’m so fucking dumb. Why did I do this? Why am I such a fucking dumbass like this all the time?” Curly’s expression was bleak as his eyes helplessly drifted down onto the steering wheel, and he lifted his t-shirt up to wipe the sweat from his forehead.

“I know more Bob Dylan songs than that!”

The car behind him honked, and Curly let out a shrill, ear-piercing scream and gunned the gas pedal. The truck shot forwards, careening across the intersection and right past a police car. Terrified and disoriented, Curly swerved across the lane and to the curbside, jamming on the brakes, which produced a horrible screech but brought the truck to a complete stop. The fifteen year old’s head was bent over the steering wheel, arms crossed and resting on top of the dashboard in front of him, hyperventilating and dripping with sweat and regret.

“Oh my God, oh my God, oh my God, I almost died, oh my God.”

His ears were ringing so badly that he didn’t hear the insistent _tap-tap-tap_ on the truck’s passenger side window, instead hearing it gently fade into his senses as his foggy eyes blinked themselves back into reality.

“Son, you’ve just hit a telephone pole! What the hell are you doin’?”

Oliver loved his pickup truck.


End file.
